Touhou: Darkness from Elsewhere
by The Pencil Of the Gods
Summary: A young man from elsewhere falls into Gensokyo, and this will cause a chain reaction that will shock the world, from both inside and out. R&R please
1. Enter the Phantasm

AN: This has been a story in my head for a while, in fact, ever since I had first played Touhou I had been thinking about it. And also, in my opinion I don't think anyone's ever thought of a story like this (If I'm wrong please correct me!)

No flaming,**_ please_**, I hate flamers with a passion.

* * *

"_Kayong mga gago kayo_ . . . ,_ you actually chased me all the way across the south china sea!?_"

A young man was surrounded by three winged figures, dark creatures from his homeland. The monsters were distinctly female, with attractive faces that were marred by their yellow eyes, long blood-red tongues and fingers-turned-talons. Worse still, from where their legs should have been, their intestines dangled about freely, as if their lower half had been ripped out. Lastly, leathery wings spread wide behind their back, constantly beating on the air, keeping them a float.

Nathaniel Diego B. Nardaa had been asleep under the roof of a run-down shrine late night, when seven of them had ambushed him. Half an hour after the fight began; only three remained, however, due to fatigue, as well as injuries he had received earlier, he was now on his last legs.

" '_tang ina_, you assholes can't just let me go can you?" stated Nathan sardonically. "So, under whose orders are you under now, hm?"

Not bothering to answer him, the creature lunged at him with an ear piercing screech while brandishing its sharp claws.

Nathan lunge to the side, only to see the other two had flown behind him to corner him. Pivoting his body quickly, Nathan pulled out a hand full of dried leaves from his pocket, crushing them in his hands; the leaves were replaced by a ball of fire, which he hurtled towards the two creatures.

One of them flew upwards to avoid the flame, the other however, was not so lucky. Screaming loudly, the creature was consumed entirely by the flame, which had turned darker and darker as its body burned down.

"Tch . . . well shit, that's the last set I have" he murmured.

Speaking up for the first time, the creature jeered at the young man, with a strange and low voice, which echoed around Nathans ear in double timbres.

"_What is the matter child, are you all out of tricks?" _it said in a foreign tongue at the same time flashing long pointed talons. _"Very well then, die!"_

Screeching, both of the creatures dived at him once again. Gritting his teeth, Nathan pulled out a brass lighter from his pocket. Flicking it, a small flame came alive.

Close, two creatures swung their clawed arms in long arcs. Jumping backwards, he had narrowly avoided the attack, resulting in his shirt being torn and three light gashes on his chest. At the moment he landed down, Nathan blew on the lighter, the small flame on it expanded in size, creating a wide blanket of fire.

However, this flame was not as solid or as strong as the previous, so the two creatures simply flew through the flames, not even burned or hurt in the slightest. Once again they swiped their arms at him in an attempt to cleave his throat.

Unable to dodge in time, Nathan shielded himself with his arms, which the monster cleaved large chunks of skin out of. Mashing his lips to suppress his scream of pain, Nathan spun around to forceful kick on the creature, sending it flying to the side however, the other one dived in once the first one was out of the way, and rammed him a few feet backwards, Nathan heard a cracking sound, and felt intense pain in his rib areas.

_"Ahahahaha! They're giving us a years' worth of fetus for killing a whelp like you!"_ jeered the creature _"The standards of those _Albularyos_ are surely dropping!"_

"You can't_ really_ say that seriously after I've killed of five of your partners can you?" said Nathan, giving the creature the 'Are-you-stupid?' look.

"Besides, if anyone has low standards, it would be you Manananggal, who else would take a life threatening job for _para sa pagkain?_.' he said before switching to his home language. At this the Manananngal twitched.

'_Also, you're in Japan, you can at least speak English, otherwise the locals can't understand you dumbass" _

Already angry at the earlier insult the Manananggal snapped at the this, and flew high up with another ear piercing screech, her partner following her, and prepared to deliver the finishing blow.

_"Damn it, if only I had my tools right now, I could kill these things no problem"_ thought Nathan.

Nathan was referring to his bag of tools and weapons, which had mysteriously disappeared during in the middle of his fight, right after he had killed a second Manananggal.

"This is bad . . ." he thought desperately "Fuck, its a waste but . . ."

As both creatures speared towards him, he pulled out a grenade, which had been especially hard to acquire and enchant, which had been hidden under his jeans, and strapped to his ankle.

Unpinning the explosive, Nathan cooked it in his hand until he hurtled the grenade at the pair of monsters.

"Wha-" began the creatures before being cut off by the a short popping sound, followed by the grenade imploding itself dragging the two creatures to it at full force, before suddenly exploding with much more power than a grenade should have and showering them with an unusual amount of shrapnel. The two Manananggals landed on the ground, lying still.

Nathan stared at the bodies for a while, before sighing and collapsing on the floor.

"Shit, I'm all be. . at . . ." he said before lapsing into unconsciousness.

While he was asleep, a small humanoid creature, only five inches long, who had been observing the fight from behind one of the nearby trees that surrounded the shrine, approaching slowly, the Dwende was surprised when a black hole opened beneath him, sucking him inside.

In a spur of the moment, the Dwende leaped inside as well.

Little did they, nor anyone from inside Genskoyo know that the little action of the creature would shake Genskoyo to its very core.

* * *

AN: And voila! It is finished!

I'm sure that I'll actually continue this story, to anyone interested. (Also, as long as anyone is actually interested!)

I'd appreciate tips, one of the biggest reasons why I don't update is 'cause i'm a bit of a perfectionist, and have a hard time submitting what I consider sh!t, I'm considering hitting myself as we speak.

Please comment and review, with snacks.


	2. Waiting Period I

**AN:** _Well that was a long time for an update, but I don't think anyone was particularly waiting for one (I highly doubt I have much people following my stories) But here it is!_

_Also you might want to reread chapter one, its been edited a bit._

* * *

Nathan awoke with a start, regretting immediately feeling the throb of his wounds from the battle last night.

_"The fight . . . ."_ slowly sitting himself up. Nathan took a look at his surroundings. He wasn't at the floor of the shrine where he was supposed to be, rather, it seemed he was inside a shrine. A different one too, because as far as he could tell, this one was better kept (although still quite rundown) than the one he had fought nearby.

Checking the condition of his body, he found his wounds haphazardly bandaged, and ointed as well from the smell beneath the bandage.

_"Where am I?"_ he wondered. Hearing the sound of a door sliding open, he turned his head to see two girls enter the room.

Both girls were blond, most likely sisters. One was wearing a long red dress, the ends of which ended in a gradient orange and cut out to resemble autumn leaves, which she also wore on her head. The other, wore a yellow blouse with poofy sleeves and a dress going halfway up to her shoulders with wheat designs stitched on. She also wore a red hat with a cluster of, much to the wonder of Nathan, blue grapes attached to it.

The girl in red said something, and then addressed Nathan, with his limited knowledge of Japanese; he could tell they were asking something from him, most likely if he was fine. Nathan responded with his usual response.

"Sorry, I don't understand much of what you're saying, can you speak in English?" he said. This had mostly worked on his stay in Japan, nowadays, the people were very literate.

Too bad it didn't work now.

The girls blinked in confusion, before talking to each other frantically, sometimes looking or pointing at Nathan. In the end the girls calmed down and once again tried talking to Nathan, to little success.

Sighing, the girl in red said something to the other girl, stood up and left the room, leaving the two alone. An awkward silence descended on the room, neither side how to communicate with each other. The silence was broken by the growling of Nathans stomach, the universal sign of hunger.

Smiling in understanding, the girl stood up and left the room, coming back after awhile with a bowl of hot rice. She handed it to Nathan before seating herself near the door.

Nathan took the bowl gratefully, picking up the chopsticks, however, before he could take a bite, his sense of smell suddenly kicked in. A powerful earthy scent.

Quickly turning his head to the girl, who jumped at his sudden action, he looked (or smelled) at her with a sense of realization. The girl smelled like that of a Diwata and strangely enough, crops, her element as far as he could tell was related to nature, but she did not seem to powerful. The girl suddenly blushed and stared at the floor. Nathan realized he must have been staring at her quite intensely. Muttering an apology, he went back to eating his food, still a little wary of the being nearby the creature.

* * *

The Hakurei Shrine at mid-noon was silent except for the seeping of a certain shrine maiden, who looked about ready to give up and eat snacks.

"Haaa . . . . This is troublesome, it's as if the leaves won't stop coming" she muttered.

Sensing something approaching her she looked up to see a figure flying towards her. It was the goddess of changing leaves as Reimu recalled, Shizuha Aki.

Grateful for an excuse to stop working, Reimu propped the broom next to the shrines entrance.

"Reimu-saaaaan!" the girl called out, before landing in front of her.

"Ah, what do you want?" asked Reimu nonchalantly while making her way back to her shrine.

"Me and sis just picked up an outsider, I think, and I think he's foreign, he keeps speaking in a different language and has no idea what were saying!" said Shizuha.

"A foreigner huh?" said Reimu "We don't get many of those. Wait here." She said promptly before entering the shrine. She returned with a tray with a cup of tea and several snacks.

"Hey, take this seriously! Me and sis have no idea what to do with him." she complained "Plus its your responsibility to take care of things like this."

"Hm, yeah, maybe, bring him over tomorrow, I'll have something done by then. In the mean time, he's in your care." said Reimu promptly before flying off in the exact same manner, much to the surprise of the goddess.

"Hey!"

* * *

This was one of the most awkward days Nathan has ever had. Stuck in a house inhabited by just two girls (as far as he knew) after a big battle, lost, and with no proper form of communication asides the few phrases of Japanese he learned before coming here. Which, by the way consisted of "Thank you" and "Sorry"

In any case they were trying to be as hospitable as they could, the girl in yellow (who was the younger sister as far as their interactions go) more so than the one in red. After the older sister returned, looking annoyed for some reason, they had short conversation, after which they proceeded to talk to Nathan about what was presumably the rules of the house. Seeing as he couldn't understand them, they made use of hand gestures and the like.

First off, he wasn't allowed to enter the sisters room, and he was only to sleep in the corner of the living room, much to his embarrassment, however he couldn't contest with it as it was his house. Second, the sisters vehemently insisted he **never** go out of the house without supervision, while Nathan didn't like being treated like a child, the sisters seemed to have a reason to not want him out.

However, it didn't sit well with him that he should stay here to long. He'd already been tracked to this country, and although the sister were definitely not human, Nathan did not sense a power comparable to the packs of Manananggal that had chased him for years. Planning to leave tonight, Nathan took some things from their food stores (he felt a little sorry for this, but he would be well off once they would wake) and waited until they were asleep.

Sliding the door quietly, Nathan stepped into the moonlit clearing, moving silently away from the house.

"Wait, not house" Nathan corrected himself. Seeing the building for the first time in its entirety, it looked like it was a shrine rather than a home. "The shrines Diyosa, perhaps?" he thought.

"Nah, masyadong mahina, maybe guardian spirits?'" he said to himself as an afterthought.

Not contemplating any further, Nathan left the shrine grounds, only to find it had been situated in the middle of a mountain, surrounded by forests. With no clear way to any sign of civilization, Nathan did the most logical action he could think of. Covering his eyes with one hand, stretched out the other and extended his index finger.

"Eenie meenie miney moe, catch the tiger . . . ."

* * *

Back at the Hakurei Shrine, Reimu returned after spending the day at the Scarlet Devil Mansion, only to find someone was already there.

"What are you doing here Yukari?"

The Gap Yokai was sitting at the front of her shrine, picking off of some snacks on a plate "My snacks" Reimu noted with annoyance.

"Ah, Reimu, glad your back," said Yukari cheerily.

"What do you want" cut Reimu testily.

Yukari simply smiled and a gap opened on top of Reimu, and out came a huge lumpy bag, falling straight on top of her.

"Gah!"

"The owner of this bag has fallen into Gensokyo, his name would be Nathan Diego B. Naarda" Yukari said while snapping her fan open.

A small gap appeared in front of the Reimu, who was recovering from the impact of the bag. From it, a small wallet came out plopping itself in front of Reimu. The wallet fell flat and opened, revealing the picture of a dark-haired olive skinned teenager, along with other tid-bits of information

"I need you to find him, bring him to me, alive but under any condition, m'kay~?"

Reimu just stared dumbly at Yukari for a moment, before asking "Why?"

Yukari simply smirked as a gap appeared under her, slowly sinking into it "Lets just say that's its been awhile since someones gotten into Gensokyo by accident"

Then the room was silent, leaving a confused Reimu alone on the shrine grounds. Sighing she stood up and heaved the bag inside her shrine, her intuition telling her to pay a visit to the Aki sisters tomorrow.

* * *

**AN:**_ Well, that's it, I was hoping to make it a little longer, but I decided to go slow, to pick out suggestions and tips. Well at any rate, as always please R&R._

_Also this is the **first time** for me to submit a **SECOND** chapter whoot!_


	3. Waiting Period II

**AN**_: Well, finally an update! I decided to give this story a slow pace so I don't get too stressed, so that means the chapters will usually be 1500 - 3000 words long, hope you don't mind._

_Now, on with the show!_

* * *

"Shit-Fuck-Shit-Fuck-Shit-Fuck-Fuck"

Nathan was running through the forest as quickly as he could, not fully comprehending the situation. Looking back at his time with the two sisters, he could now understand why they asked he never leave their home.

Early morning, he got up from the tree he slept on, and felt strange. His injuries from last night prevented him from noticing a few things in the area he was now in, but now that he was fully recovered, he began to sense a few abnormalities in this place; the first being his unusually fast recovery. True his recovery rate was faster than regular humans, given his bloodline, but to recover from the wounds he had received last night, in two days no less, even with the treatment he was given, that was still unusual.

The thing Nathan could attribute this to was the unnatural strength of nature in the air. He was always stronger around nature, being able to draw strength from it, so that naturally made it better for him to work around it. However, the amount he could feel around him was staggering; this was the kind of energy you could only grasp around ancient forestation, but even that did not hold a candle to this place.

It's feel was younger, more vibrant, as though every single aspect of nature that was, was expounded on, or made brighter. The earth was healthier, the wind sweet and fresh, the water was bluer and purer, and the trees were strong and sturdy. To Nathan, this place wasn't just good nature, it was supernatural.

Of course, he could make a little sense of it; after all, the sisters were not human, so many of the other residents in here could be; it would explain the vast amount of power flowing around here. It could be that this place was simply such a powerful source of nature that spirits and supernatural creatures had flocked to it, and their presence preserved this place's vitality, or could have even increased it exponentially.

But Nathan did not consider exactly how big the number of supernatural creatures that had flocked here were.

And so, Nathan found himself on the run from two creatures, resembling what could be the Japanese Kamaitachi, a weasel shaped youkai with the power to create razor winds, which cut down nearby objects. He had simply gone to survey the area some more when these two attacked him. Considering the hungry look in their eyes, it didn't take much to guess what they wanted.

"Fuck" cursed Nathan again as the slash of one of the Kamaitachi missed him by inches, taking down a tree instead.

Currently he was at a disadvantage, because, for Nathan, this was the first time he had encountered a legend that was not native to his own country. He knew, of course, that to some extent the myths and legends told at other countries where real, however. However, he had no idea that he would be taking refuge in another country for prolonged periods of time, so he didn't bother to research on how to combat them.

The next problem was his lack of tools. Among the people in his line of work, he was particularly powerful, referring to both his unnatural talents and his physique. This was because that, although his father had shunned the supernatural out of fear, it was a given that he was still part of a long and powerful lineage. So like it or not, that power would be passed to his sons, much to his chagrin. Not to mention his mother was the physical representation of the Taal Volcano, sadly, that was a fact his father found out only after they were married. The reaction of his father was priceless.

A lot of his father's relatives had gotten a kick out of that.

But at any rate, despite his lineage, his powers were primarily tool based, meaning his use of regular was versatile, and their powers could range from mundane, to downright catastrophically powerful, but without them, the best he could do in a fight was stalemate a bear in a one-on-one melee. It was a mostly impressive feat, but not much use to him in his current situation.

Fortunately for Nathan, luck seemed to smile on him today; the Kamaitachi annoyed at not being able to kill him immediately, began swinging wildly at him in their impatience for a quick snack. Their wild swings missed him, but inadvertently hit other targets. Namely; namely, the trees surrounding them.

Suddenly a sharp cry came from behind Nathan.

Turning sharply, Nathan was surprised to see a raven haired girl looking at him from above. The girl was literally floating a few feet above him, with a pair of wings on her back, not the leathery bat wings he usually gets, but feathery black wings. The girl was pointing at the scene of destruction, in front of her.

The girl was pointing at the scene, namely the toppled trees and the two buried underneath them, and Nathan. The girl suddenly swooped down in front of Nathan, startling him and the Kamaitachi. Taking out a pen, the girl started blasting off in high-speed Japanese. Too stunned for a moment to answer, Nathan took a moment to recover before taking the usual measures.

"Sorry, I don't speak in Japanese" he said, hopeful that she would be able to understand him and he would have a way to make sense of the situation.

Sadly he was disappointed once again as the girl tilted her head in confusion, trying to make sense of the foreign language.

"Japan has literacy percentage rate of ninety-nine" Nathan said sarcastically "Damn travel papers always lie ..."

The girl suddenly grinned, looking at Nathan as if she had struck oil. Nodding at herself contently, the girl sped of behind him to question the again startled Kamaitachi, who were debating on whether or not to attack Nathan, who seemed to have captured the interest of a Tengu, the de facto rulers of Yokai mountain (barring of course, the two goddess who lived at the top of it).

As the two Kamaitachi struggled with the Tengu, Nathan decided to take advantage of the current chaos to slip away. Moving quietly into the shades of the tree's Nathan moved as far as he could still hear them until breaking into a full sprint.

* * *

As the foreigner slipped away, Aya smirked in victory, well victory in a kind for her anyway.

She had heard the conversation between Yukari and Reimu, although she wasn't sure if the Border Mistress let her hear it on purpose, and it immediately sparked her interest, after all, if Yukari were to take notice someone, it always ended in an incident, especially if it was an outsider, the most recent example being Sanae Kochiya and her goddesses.

Letting the boy get away now would certainly create similar effects, and Aya would be there to record every inch of it.

* * *

Over at the Aki shrine, the two sisters frantically searched for their foreign guest. Having nothing to do until the harvest season, the two sisters had been content to simply sleep until the afternoon and did not notice the disappearance of their guest until then.

"Onee-chan! I don't think he's anywhere near the shrine, I think we should search for him somewhere else!" cried Minoriko.

"Damn it! I told him not to go, but he went and did it anyway, whats wrong with him!" said the older sister gnashing her teeth in frustration.

"Onee-chan, what do we do about this? If Hakurei-san figures out about this..."

Shizuha grimaced at that. If the outsider was eaten on their account, Reimu would definitely give them a beating regardless of the fact that outsiders get eaten quite often anyway. The resident shrine maiden was annoying like that. She wouldn't kill them, but the last time they had an encounter with the crazy shrine maiden they had nearly been too injured to attend to the Autumn season, although admittedly that was their fault, they were not eager to go through it again, more so when since they couldn't help it this time.

"Ah, damn it again!" she exclaimed "Alright, Minoriko, you go look for him around the woods, I'll go check to see if any of the Tengu found him"

Nodding in response the younger sister flew off towards the forest, watching her sister until she was out of sight, the older Aki sister sighed before flying off to the home of the Tengu.

* * *

_As usual feel free to comment and give opinions!_


	4. Waiting Period III

**AN**:_ Chapter has been edited!_

_ Also here's__ a few translations for you good folks out there.  
_

_Gago = indirectly translated as 'Asshole' because stupid and ignorant are too soft in comparison to it's use.  
Putang-ina = sometimes abbreviated to just 'tang-ina, means Mother F*cker in usage.  
Aso = Dog_

* * *

Reimu was having a bad day.

For starters, her wake up call had been a graced by the sound of a really, really LOUD alarm clock, which she did not own. Next to the offending item was a note, signed by the ever-eloquent Yukari.

_"Wakey, wakey Reimu-chan and go find our new guest~" _Reimu could imagine an infuriating smirk on Yukari's face as she read this.

Her morning already ruined, Reimu herself dressed and began flying towards the Aki Shrine as a gut feeling. However, she was interrupted by two hungry brain-dead Kamaitachi. She promptly beat the hell out of them, but did not trouble herself to finish them off.

Landing finally at the shrine of the sisters, Reimu called out for the sisters._ "C'mon, hurry up already . . ."_ she thought impatiently.

After a long period of silence, Reimu lost her patience and stepped inside the shrine, only to find it completely empty.

Cursing in annoyance, Reimu looked around for any sign of life, perhaps the sisters left a note or something? _"Yeah right, who'm I kidding_" she thought in defeat.

Ready to give up and preparing to leave, Reimu saw something shine on the floor of the living room, bent low Reimu picked up the object. It was a rectangular brass object, the top portion of it seemed loose, with hinges attaching it to the lower area. Reimu flipped the top down, and nearly dropped the object in surprise. The inside was a little more ornate, with small box with holes inside and a gear attached inside it. Most surprisingly was the small tongue of flame that lept from a small hole at the tip of smaller box.

_"Hm . . . this is came from Outside, so that means that guy was here for sure"_ thought Reimu _"So all I need to do is find the sisters and I find him!"_

Picking up the strange object, Reimu left the shrine and flew towards the one place she was sure would know were the sisters are. "I just hope those damn Tengu let me in without any trouble" she thought, hopeful that her day couldn't get any worse.

* * *

There were a lot of times when Nathan felt like laughing, not because he saw something funny, it was more of a 'I give up trying to understand why God hates me' laugh, like right now.

The reason for this would be due to the fact that he was now surrounded by a group of dog-eared people with large bushy tails. His scent of smell was back and he could definitely say, with almost one hundred percent certainty, that he was surrounded by dog Yokai.

The Yokai caught him running away from the spectacle with the Kamaitachi, and apparently, he had run straight into their territory. Thankfully, these Yokai seemed to be on the more civil side of things, seeing as they hadn't tried to kill (or eat) him yet, as well as had a form of organization, he could see that they were wearing identical uniforms and were armed with proper weaponry.

The problem came from the lack of communication, as usual. They were intent on figuring out exactly who he was and what he was doing here, however, unable to understand him (he didn't try as hard to communicate anymore, anyway) took him away to the top of the mountain. After passing a certain clearing, Nathan looked around and saw that they had entered a village.

The village was filled with winged and tailed people alike, and as they walked in, they turned and looked at him. Seeing as no one really made a fuss, it seemed that arrests here were regular occurrence.

They led him to a large imposing building. In fact, there was no real need to translate what this place was. The iron bars, angry shouts, and miserable moans more than made up for the lack of communication, it all translated to one word: Prison.

_"'Tang-ina naman, what the hell did I do to deserve this?"_ he thought. "_And why the hell are there so many monsters walking around?"_

It was a sudden thought, but as he delved deeper into it, he realized the weight of that idea. Why were there so many creatures walking around undisguised and unhindered, they swarmed the place like it was their land, as if there was no need to fear from the human expansion and their discrimination against supernatural creatures.

More importantly, and much to his embarrassment, he didn't even recognize the area he was in. Normally, this would not be an issue, as he had been knocked out in a fight, leaving him heavily injured, carted of by two girls into their home, chased by a pair of wind rats, and captured by dogs, so this should have been entirely excusable. The main problem here was that as far as he could remember, there were no forests, mountains or valleys near the Hakurei shrine. The Hakurei shrine he knew was near a suburb inside a forgotten and dying forest.

The dogs led him inside an empty cell, and pushed him inside roughly. _"Oy, dahandahan naman mga gago kayong Aso!"_ he shouted angrily as they left him inside and locked the cell.

Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to calm down, and inspected the bars closely. Absolutely no rust, and used a simple locking mechanism; a bolt plus lock combo, the bolt he couldn't enchant, but the lock he probably could, however strengthening the lock would probably be a bad idea right now.

_"Dammit, no way out until I can get my hands on something useful . . . "_ he thought in annoyance. Sitting down, he looked around at his temporary confinement, a small mat that counted as a bed, a few pieces of garbage littered here and there, a gray, hard cell although some of the cement had chipped off and noticeable brown patches of . . .

"Wait a minute . . . Oh you've _got_ to be joking me"

Upon closer inspection, the chipped pieces were revealed a thick wall of wood, the cement itself simply a thin covering for it.

"Okay, that's just really irresponsible, you're probably keeping supernatural criminals in here, and using wooden walls while covering it with cement?" he wondered "Why the fuck has no one broken out yet?" He took another look at the walls and sighed, then suddenly a brilliant idea occurred to him.

"Whoever the hell constructed this, I'll thank you for your stupidity!" he said with a vicious grin.

* * *

Aki Minoriko flew towards the nearest Tengu outpost, landing, she called out to the guard on duty.

"Excuse me! Tengu-san!"

Approaching her the guard did a small bow and greeted the goddess. "It is a pleasure to see you, Aki Minoriko-dono, to what do I owe the honor?"

"Erm, has there been any sighting of an outsider recently? Dark-skinned, foreign tongue, messy hair?" she asked.

The guard thought for awhile, before nodding his head in affirmation. "Ah, yes, I've received a report from the crow Tengu about the recent arrest of a trespasser that matches those description.s"

"Um, I'm afraid you'll have to let him go, Tengu-san, we're to let him meet Hakurei-san, he is an outsider after all, its her job to deal with things like this"

_"Not to mention the fact that were the ones that will have to deal with the fallout if he gets hurt"_ she thought to herself.

"Not to worry Aki Minoriko-dono, we had actually planned to alert the shrine maiden soon, we simply kept him here to make sure he doesn't get into any trouble" he said as if reading her thoughts "So long as he doesn't do anything foolish, he will be released in no time"

Minoriko sighed in relief, until a small idea came to her. "But what if he does get into trouble?"

The Tengu laughed heartily, before answering. "Aki Minoriko-dono, you know that we Tengu are among the most proficient and powerful Yokai, I'm sure that we can easily handle whatever mischief that human can come up with."

Minoriko would have once again sighed in relief, until she was interrupted by a huge explosion coming from nearby. Aki Minoriko's eyes twitched, and she hoped that whatever that was had nothing to do with her charge.

Hopefully.


	5. Waiting Period IV

**AN: **_W__oo-hoo, update! Well its a little shorter than my usual quota but what the hey, at least I updated shomethin'!_

_On a side note, don't be confused by anything confusing that pops up, all will be revealed eventually!_

* * *

Nathan sat down quietly, his body assuming a state of meditation. Several times the guards passed by him while giving a quick glance. Many prisoners were quiet, but they were all more miserable than they were hinting on. That was what they felt at least, however they didn't get the same vibes from Nathan, who outwardly just looked like he was sleep-sitting. After an hour or so, he had gained more attention, for none of them had seen him move the entire time, not even a twitch. He became a mostly gossiped topic for the guards, some even betting with each other if he was dead or not.

Truth be told, however, Nathans insides were burning like hell. Trying to drive out spirits tends to do that.

It should be noted that in their (the _Mangangaso_, the organization to whom he and his _Lolo_ were previously affiliated with, and now on the run from.) teachings, there was a difference between soul and spirit.

A soul was like an ID card, giving acknowledgment of your existence to Mother Earth and the Plane of Souls, it kept you from being a simple object and was your ticket to the afterlife. What happened from to your soul from then on, no one could say for sure, whether it you be judged for heaven, hell, or even set for reincarnation, no could say for sure. It was up to what the bearer of that soul had done in life.

Another aspect of souls is that it generated spirits, a feat which could be done by no other spiritual aspect.

A spirit was the life force of all things, even inanimate objects, which were created from a part of nature. After all, ore and rocks contained spirits, which could be turned into a blade. So even that blade would have the spirits those rocks once held. It was just a little harder to bring out.

According to doctrine, spirits came in two types: ambient and active.

Ambient spirits were, put simply, leftovers, created when a soul leaves the physical plain. The ambient ones were the leftover amount in the air and in objects, created by nature spirits, who had no physical bodies to hold the actual spirits that they created. They were also made when souls left the physical plain; the energy generated by the force of a soul leaving the body could create spirits as well.

Active spirits were the ones that resided in physical, living bodies. They did not keep the body alive as with ambient spirits, but rather, provided resistance towards things that could damage the soul. Acting as a natural barrier, the active spirits stopped possessions, curses and others of their kind. The more spirit a person has, the stronger the resistance. Needless to say, when a person learns how to tap into and control their spirits, they are welcomed into the realm of the supernatural.

In the case of inanimate objects, they kept things from 'dying' or deteriorating. However, spirits in themselves had finite lifespans, so as the number of spirits in an object slowly dwindles down, so does the object, different from living things, whose survival depended on the physical shell that housed the soul.

So, coming back to the situation at hand, the current ritual that Nathan was trying to enact and cannibalize was a ritual usually used to drive away possessive spirit-based creatures, like the _Batibat_. The key signal that the ritual usually worked was that a piece of the wood-work would rot away, in this case, Nathan hoped that the wood would weaken enough for him to break through it.

With his current lack of tools however, it is significantly more difficult to enact the ritual, leaving it up to his (lack of) talent in spontaneously activating a ritual, which also required a huge amount of chi reserves, something he was also lacking.

If there was one thing he had to his advantage, it was that he at least had a natural connection to heat and flames, which scared or killed off wood attributed spirits easily. It was still a pain in the ass trying to generate the ritual in the fist place though.

_"All right, just a little more to go . . . "_ thought Nathan after a quick run-through of his ritual. _"Preliminary steps achieved, main phase has set base properly, skipping natural pollution phases, entering natural restructure phase . . ."_ He thought a little more mechanically.

Finally, after one last run-through, he poured his chi out into the set ritual field. "Activate purging ritual" The temperature of just his cell shot up by several degree's. However, Nathan's eyes widened as the unheard out-pour of chi broke out of the ritual zone, effectively tearing apart the spirits inside outright instead of scaring them as planned.

A popping sound could be heard coming from inside the wooden walls, and all of a sudden, the walls exploded with the force of all the panicking spirits writhing within their home. As Nathan was thrown back by the force, he heard startled shouts from the other prisoners. As well as several other voices nearby, probably the guards.

_"Ah shit that wasn't supposed to happen,"_ he thought as he got up shakily. _"Rituals were never my thing in the first place"_

Standing fully to his feet, Nathan heard voices directly behind him and the sound of steel hitting steel. Turning, He found himself face-to-face with a group of guards trying to break open the cell, apparently after finding out they couldn't open it the usual way, so far though, they've had as much luck of opening it as with the latter.

_"Of course, I enchanted the damn thing to make sure that nothing from this cell gets in OR out,__ at least not from the front"_ he added as an afterthought.

Running through the hole in the wall, Nathan had expected to be home free and was already planning a way to escape through the woods. However, his plans backfired the moment he stepped out into the sun.

"Fuck"

Nathan was originally under the impression that the prison was rather low on maintenance, and wondered why the other inmates had not tried to escape like him, they were certainly capable of it, if the scent of bull in the cell next to him was anything to go by, but in the end, he had rather arrogantly chalked it up to his own initiative when it came to these things.

He was dead wrong.

The reason why the other inmates did not try to escape was not because the prison itself was special or even that they lacked the initiative or ingenuity to escape. It was one simple thing that kept them at bay. The overpowering guards that managed the prison.

And so, Nathan found himself surrounded by a rather large force of youkai dogs and crows, brandishing rather malevolent looking spears and broadswords at him.

" . . . Fuck"

* * *

_So, waddya think? I would have made it longer, but I feared that writers block would return with a vengeance if I did, then I wouldn't have ended anywhere at all._

_PS, Any tips, notifications or consructive critisism would be warmly accepted. So cilck that little button down there called "Review" go on, you know you want to._


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